The ability to manage information sharing as a process and to systematically improve upon it is a core competency of large corporations, partnerships and communities of agencies. Yet, there is no common approach to and shared framework for methodically analyzing and improving the capability of communities of agencies etc. to effectively share information, particularly across different disciplines including manufacturing, law enforcement, public health and transportation.
Without a method and system for anticipating and planning the flow of information based on circumstances and information needs, the lack of a shared “concept of operations” for information sharing, and the presence of communication gaps and bottlenecks are likely to reduce effective collaboration.
Communication planning based on anticipating information sharing needs should be distinguished from information requirements analysis, business process modeling, workflow analysis and notification management.
Information requirements analysis is more tactical; a finite phase in systems integration projects, it is usually conducted by engineers who: (a) examine the business processes that drive information exchanges; (b) are typically eager to “freeze” and get sign-off on a “requirements document,” and (c) start building the technical means to move discrete types of data (e.g. police records, death notices, and drivers license photos) from system to system. Engineers have little incentive to detect or deal with information sharing issues, political and otherwise, that cannot be addressed by their technology or project, especially within a set timetable or budget.
With needs-based communications planning, on the other hand, the focus is on the circumstances, requirements, parties, contents, means, agreements and policies specifying information sharing. A communications planner is typically a senior official who needs to evaluate how capable a state or region would be at sharing information across agencies and disciplines if a scenario were to occur, how an organization's current information sharing capability compares to where it was six months ago, what the most critical sharing gaps are for a given scenario and what is being done to fix them.
Needs-based communications planning is thus more strategic than information requirements analysis because it enables communities of agencies etc. to collaboratively risk-manage the most critical information sharing gaps involving any number of communication technologies and focus limited time and money on the most critical gaps.
Business process modeling differs from needs-based communications planning in that it models the processes of an enterprise or set of enterprises in order to describe these processes or prescribe changes to them. Similarly, workflow analysis aims at modeling, scheduling, improving and automating the flow of work within an enterprise or across enterprises. The methods defined and used in business process modeling and workflow analysis all emphasize business functions and work processes. They do not define a systematic process for analyzing information sharing needs from which to derive communication plans, detect potential failures and assess their systemic impacts.
The Notification management solutions typically consist of methods and systems for the encoding and automating communication plans. Notification management methods and systems do not address the problem of generating communication plans they automate from an analysis of information needs and availability.